Report: TARP still owes $133B

Taxpayers are still owed $132.9 billion from the financial bailout initiated under President George W. Bush and continued by President Barack Obama, and some of those funds will never be repaid, a government watchdog says in a report to Congress Thursday.

The special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which supervises, audits and investigates actions taken under the massive bailout that flooded the economy with hundreds of billions of dollars, said in its quarterly report that the program is expected to continue existing for years.

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For example, some TARP programs that support the housing market are expected to exist into 2017, with the government able to spend $51 billion more in the coming years.

The Treasury Department has already “written off or realized” losses of $12 billion, and it expects continued losses on some bailout investments, the report said, citing the weak economic recovery as one reason there is slow progress in recouping outstanding TARP funds.

Because of volatile markets and a sluggish economic recovery, it could be challenging to recover some of the Treasury’s investments in more than 400 companies, including AIG, General Motors, Ally Financial and community banks, in the near term, according to the report.

The watchdog said one of the biggest misconceptions about TARP is that the program had essentially ended when some of the bigger banks recently repaid and exited the program, when, in reality, some of the programs will continue to be in effect in the years to come, while others do not even have scheduled end dates.

The Treasury “may not be able to exit its investments” in AIG or the auto industry until markets are healthy again, the report warned: the Treasury still has a substantial 77 percent ownership stake in AIG, 32 percent stake in GM and 74 percent stake in Ally Financial.

“Treasury has made substantial progress winding down TARP and has already recovered more than 77 percent of the funds disbursed for the program through repayments and other income,” Treasury spokesperson Matt Anderson said in a statement. “We’ve made clear that moving forward we’ll continue to balance the important goals of exiting our investments as soon as practicable and maximizing value for taxpayers.”

Readers' Comments (15)

What is bad...what is WRONG...is that we keep getting told things are paid back, not paid back, paid back, not paid back, etc., etc.

Get it straight!

Put pressure on the gubmint (the OBAMA gubmint) to give you a straight answer. And then, report it!

Hold the gubmint up to a standard and follow through!

We the people are sick of the constant attempts to demonize Republicans, protect Democrats, and use two sets of standards to dig in. The proof is in the peoples' reactions to Newt in the debates. We are sick of the false innuendo and the lies and the coverups.

How does TARP, which was signed into law on Oct 3 2008, become "Obama's financial bailout"? At best, it's a shared responsibility with the previous Bush administration. And even then it was expected to cost upwards of $300 billion to the American taxpayers when first implemented.

The pathetic program should have never been initiated. Every single one of those companies needed to die on the vine! I don't want hear the word "free market" out of any of heir mouths. The market in America is anything but "free." Both Bush and Obama make me sick with their lying, manipulating brand of crap. They are both alike.

As usual, the taxpayer gets it in the chops again. Get used to it - that money is gone for good. Just get ready when Government Motors (the UAW) comes back, hat-in-hand, for another bailout. But we just got to save those union jobs that drove GM over the brink in the first place! How's that Chevy Volt workin' out for ya!?!?

No surprise. I will never ever forgive Bush/Paulson for doing this to America! Bush failed America domestically, foreign policy and the economy. My rule of thumb is if it wiffs of Bush get as far away as possible!

No surprise. I will never ever forgive Bush/Paulson for doing this to America! Bush failed America domestically, foreign policy and the economy. My rule of thumb is if it wiffs of Bush get as far away as possible!

Do da word "CONFISCATE" mean anythin' to ya? Well, if me, John Q. Nobody fails to pay the IRS its due or default on student loans or what have you, the govt. sure as hell impounds my assets quick! Just another example of selective justice and that insane "look forward, not back" BS so characteristic of the corrupt fascist political elite! Wake up people! The days of allegedly "changing" the system via the ballot box ended when the process was commandeered by Diebold and Citizens United was establsihed as law! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!!!!!

As much as I deplore bailing out people who willfully screwed up, and who are, by and large still living high on the hog personally, 100 billion is not a shocking about of money. I realize a lot of people think we ought to have let the banks and the auto industry collapse but we'd truly have ended up in a 2nd Great Depression had we done so.

The thing that bugs me is that with the exception of the idiots running GM and Chrysler, virtually none of the individuals responsible got the comeuppance they richly deserve. The guy who ran AIG, for example, should be selling pencils on the street corner.

But let's face it: 100 billion is probably 3 months in Iraq or one major weapons system that we don't really need, anyway. Or a single tax loophole closed. Not a ton of money given the end results.